Analy­sis from the Bron­cos’ 19–16 loss to the Charg­ers on Sun­day at SoFi Stadium.

Game Balls

Malik Reed — The sec­ond-year line­backer who went undraft­ed out of Neva­da in 2019 con­tin­ues to prove his worth. Reed had five total tack­les and a strip-sack of quar­ter­back Justin Her­bert late in the sec­ond quar­ter that kept the Charg­ers from padding their lead head­ing into the half. Reed, who is under con­tract in Den­ver through 2021, has been invalu­able to the Bron­cos over the past cou­ple of years in light of injuries to Von Miller and Bradley Chubb.

Shel­by Har­ris — Har­ris missed four games ear­li­er in the sea­son but has been steady in the four games since his return. The heart­beat of the Bron­cos’ defen­sive front had four tack­les, bat­ted down two pass­es and also had a quar­ter­back hit as his pres­ence extend­ed far beyond the stat sheet. His above-grade play is even sweet­er con­sid­er­ing a bit of life con­text: After the game, the team arranged a pri­vate plane to get Har­ris back to Den­ver for the antic­i­pat­ed birth of his son.

Melvin Gor­don — With Phillip Lind­say on injured reserve for the rest of the sea­son, Gor­don car­ried the ground load again Sun­day with 16 car­ries for 79 yards, with a long of 17 yards. Gordon’s effec­tive­ness in the first half enabled the Bron­cos to get in rhythm offen­sive­ly even though they didn’t come away with points. True to his form over the past month, Gor­don aver­aged a sol­id 4.9 yards per car­ry as he con­sis­tent­ly found holes or cre­at­ed them when there weren’t any.

Gassers

Jer­ry Jeudy — The No. 15 over­all pick from this year’s draft had five drops. He dropped con­sec­u­tive pass­es late in the sec­ond quar­ter that snuffed out the Bron­cos’ chances at get­ting any points before head­ing into the half. The vis­i­bly frus­trat­ed Jeudy threw his hel­met on the side­line after that sec­ond drop. Then, he had three more drops in the sec­ond half, includ­ing one on a would-be touch­down catch. Jeudy has 10 total drops on the sea­son, com­pared to just two TD catches.

Josey Jew­ell — The third-year line­backer dropped an easy inter­cep­tion in zone cov­er­age on the Charg­ers’ open­ing dri­ve that could’ve been an ear­ly momen­tum shift for Den­ver. Instead, Los Ange­les took the lead with a field goal. Then, in the sec­ond quar­ter, Jew­ell found him­self out of posi­tion in the red zone and got screened by Los Ange­les wide­out Mike Williams on Austin Ekeler’s 9‑yard catch-and-run for a touch­down. Those plays negat­ed his two tack­les for loss.

Bron­cos spe­cial teams — Bran­don McManus’ short open­ing kick­off led to a big return by Nasir Adder­ley to set the Charg­ers up for an easy open­ing dri­ve field goal. Then, McManus missed a 37-yard field goal off the left upright in the sec­ond quar­ter, his first miss from inside 40 yards in three years. Addi­tion­al­ly, Dion­tae Spencer and the return game pro­vid­ed lit­tle spark, Sam Mar­tin shanked a punt, and the units had mul­ti­ple penal­ties over­all. Los Ange­les post­ed 107 return yards on three kickoffs.